Today, enterprise APPs are primarily written for cloud and the security of those APPs determines whether the enterprises hosting them are at risk of being hacked, their data held in ransomware or the APPs are under DDoS attack.  What are we doing to protect that data?  How can one track and trace such data?  What data is going where in the cloud?  Can we make data active and protect itself?  Can we do something about ransomware?  What is this the new DLP?  These are just a few of the questions that need to be addressed for future applications.

We (University of Twente and Cisco jointly) are looking for Ph.D. students with a background in, or affinity with, (application) security, data management, and who wish to explore this problem statement.  We expect such Ph.D. students to push the scientific boundary, provide practically realizable solutions, and finish their work with a Ph.D. dissertation.  Candidates are expected to work at the University of Twente jointly in a larger team of other Ph.D. students and Cisco (Netherlands, France and USA) simultaneously while working with colleagues at Ecole Polytechnique Paris.

• You are a MSc-level graduate in Computer Science, AI, electrical engineering or a related field;
• You have good communication skills and you have a strong interest in operating at the crossroads of different disciplines;
• You have an excellent command of English (C1; above IELTS 7 or equivalent) , and are fluent in languages such as Python, Go, Java, C/C++, etc;
• You have a strong interest and preferably experience in AI/ML, distributed systems, and cloud-native and shift-left paradigm;
• You are able to do independent research and have publication skills.

The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Universities (CAO) and include:

• A fulltime PhD position for four years, with a qualifier in the first year.
• Full status as an employee at the UT, including pension and health care benefits.
• The salary will range from € 2.395 (1st year) to € 3.061,- (4th year) per month, plus a holiday allowance of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• A solid pension scheme;
• Excellent facilities for professional and personal development.
• As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the Twente Graduate School (TGS). Your work location is Enschede, but you will spend a part of your time at the Cisco offices (Amsterdam).